Dell has thrown its new Project Stratus device management console into what it calls 'public beta', making it available to Dell Wyse customers and partners for month-long trial periods.

The cloud-based console is intended to keep a handle on the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend. It lets IT administrators securely manage a range of devices, including PCs, smartphones, tablets, thin clients and OS-free zero clients.

"As the BYOD trend [occurs] and organisations start to adopt other consumer technologies like apps, we see IT needing the ability to rapidly adapt and embrace new end-user service delivery models," Project Stratus lead Hector Angulo said in a blog post on Monday.

"Project Stratus was designed to provide this agility in a simple, secure and cost-effective package — if IT needs to manage end-user devices, they can; if all they care about is managing how corporate data and apps are delivered regardless of device, it supports that too."

Dell is pitching Project Stratus as a simpler and cheaper alternative to running such management consoles on on-premises servers.

The console offers real-time analytics, and also provides alerts about compliance violations "with the option to take contextual actions", Dell said. These actions could include warning the user or blocking them, for example.

The real benefit of Project Stratus, though, is its unified nature. Until now, Dell's thin-client management product has come through partnership with Devon IT. By buying Wyse, Dell can now roll that functionality into the same interface used for other types of client.